Karl Holl’s interpretation of Luther’s theology (1906-1926) was part of a phase of religious studies in which dogmatics or systematic theology informed or dominated church history. He contended that a Rechtfertigungslehre that emerged before the German Reformation shaped Luther’s theology and that Luther’s theology shaped the Reformation. In fact, Holl projected his own systematic theology upon Luther. In “Luther und die Schwärmer” he broke precedent among scholars by using Luther’s denunciations of his opponents within the Reformation to distinguish between genuine Reformation theology and an inferior tradition with roots in the Middle Ages.
James M. Stayer was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, on March 15, 1935. His ancestors were Pennsylvania Germans from families that emigrated from Germany in the middle of the eighteenth century. He received a PhD from Cornell University in 1964. He taught in the Department of History, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, from 1968 to his retirement in 2000. He supervised the PhD dissertations of Werner O. Packull, Geoffrey Dipple, and Michael Driedger. His most influential publications are Anabaptists and the Sword (1972) and A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700 (2007), co-edited with John D. Roth. He gave the annual Menno Simons Lectures at Bethel College in 2008.
Moderation: Professor Dr. Heinrich Assel